News, comment & ill-informed opinion for the Twickerati of Twickenham

Court Way Stabbing

A fight in Court Way, Twickenham left two young men needing hospital treatment for stab wounds. Both have since been discharged. The incident took place on Monday afternoon and, according to witnesses quoted in the Richmond & Twickenham Times, involved a group of about 30 people. On Twitter @vanderhayes tweeted us, “Walked past a cordon, blood on the pavement and a cop talking about someone stabbed in the chest”. Although the fight took place near Richmond College, the College issued a statement to point out that “none of these young males are students at Richmond College”. Police have asked that witnesses or people with any other information should contact them.

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21 thoughts on “Court Way Stabbing”

If there is trouble more than a couple of times outside of a pub or club then that pub or club is held accountable. Even if they ‘claim’ that the trouble was not caused by those drinking within. If 50 burger King wrappers are littering the street, you can be sure that Burger king will take a beating from the Council and be pressured into stepping up litter control even though they have no control on those that littered. For the college to deny their wards’ involvement does not eradicate their responsibility. It is clear that the college is a magnet for trouble as confirmed that there is nothing else down this residential street. As much as I would love to wave goodbye to the grim teenagers heading up and down that road I know it is not a solution to the wider picture which a lot of you raise around having the education available for 6th formers (until others are up and running). No easy answer but the college must begin to take responsibility and review its strategy/PR plan with local residents. Having just kicked off it’s ‘quiet’ but speeding ahead plan for the building of a secondary school and the Special needs school on the same site as the College I can only see a decline ahead. Perhaps they should speak with the Stoop management team as they seem to be able to ferry 14,000 people through the gates with only the odd plastic cup left on a wall (ok, and several harmless ejiots walking in the middle of the road). Cctv? More coppers wandering that route at crucial times, their own security team parked strategically at certain points on the route and at the station? More severe punishments – a bit of a Giuliani crack down? Maybe Heatham Residents association can help by picking this up and making it an issue? Whatever happens, the college needs to step up and face the music. Just before those of you start pointing out that this is a minority and the rest of the college kids have the wings and faces of angels, if 3 students verbally abused you and 6 more were across the road with their knitting kit, would you defend because it’s a minority?

My teens have pointed out that there have also been incidents near the Hanwell [Hampton?] Schools where around 1500 pupils are concentrated. Are the posters below going to demand the closure of Hampton Academy, Hampton School and LEH (the latter draw pupils from an even bigger area than the college) with quite the same degree of malevolence, or do those students fit into another of their lazy stereotypes?

Of course the difference is that those schools will discipline any pupils who have any involvement in such incidents as well as involving the Police. Richmond College should perhaps consider a policy of imposing punishments to the point of exclusion for any students involved in bringing the college into disrepute as any similar educational institution would do. Clearly from the completely ineffectual presence of an embarrassed looking member of staff at the station that looks on as their students push, shove and abuse fellow passengers they have no such strategies in place.

I feel there is currently a lot of trouble generally, in and around Twickenham at the moment. Not just related to the college unfortunately. Groups of teenagers from all over are meeting on Friday nights in groups of 40 or so, especially in the river roads. Which then ends in various children getting hurt, anti social or threatening behaviour, as well as public property getting damaged.

I have lived in Twickenham for 3 years and I really don’t feel that comfortable letting my own children out, even to walk to school, just incase they end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time, which is a sad state of affairs indeed. I have spoken to many neighbours, who are also getting bored of the attitude they receive from the richmond college students, on a daily basis.

I walked past the stabbing site on Monday afternoon and I was horrified. Richmond college seriously needs to address the problem properly. They need to work with the local residents, police and council or face a backlash of calls for it to be shut down. It’s a natural knee jerk reaction, for the request of closure, but a major push on behaviour and a reevaluation of its entrance procedures could help initially perhaps? But denying they have a problem, will only delay the inevitable time bomb that seems to be ticking.

Is there a local residents committee addressing these issues with the police, council, college, schools etc? Ranting won’t help solve the situation, a logical approach from a group of like minded, intelligent people might.

Absolute hysteria from small minded nimbys, as per usual here. I went to the college myself, having been born and bred in the area, and received an absolutely fantastic education, allowing me to go to a top University. How many of these negative commenters were able to afford to send their children to fee paying schools? Incidents like this are totally unrepresentative of the student body at the college, most of whom are hard working and wish to achieve, hence why they are willing to commute such a long distance to attend a better college. Did any of the above commenters think about how long it takes a young person to commute from Wembley? Why should that young person not be allowed a chance to better themselves? It is usual middle class snobishness and selfishness. The college has and does provide a fantastic, safe learning environment for myself and countless other students. Moreover, has anyone stopped to think of the benefit 1000’s of students has on our embattled high street? I imagine not.

Granted, Twickenham requires a bigger train station to accommodate students. I presume those moaning above are also behind the nimby plans delaying our new station, an irony I imagine is totally lost in their ivory castles.

All the schools are adding sixth forms because the education leaving age is increasing to 17 from September 2013 and is set to rise to 18 in 2015. (it will then be compulsory to be in either education or an apprenticeship) It is not down to some borough-wide view that Richmond College is awful! I would also add that these new sixth forms have no track record, and even high performing local schools have not proven they can replicate success at the next level.

My child has just done the rounds of the colleges. Historically the choices have been Richmond, Esher and Strode’s (Egham). I know Esher limit the intake from LBRuT, and no doubt so does Strode’s which is even further afield, which means the majority of non-fee paying borough students must end up at Richmond College.

Richmond is a large college – over 3000 students – and the ability is much more mixed than say Esher, as they offer a broader range of vocational/traiing courses whilst Esher concentrates on A levels.

So Is it the management of the college, the mixed abilities of the students or the size of intake that influences the problems?

What will be interesting from September onwards is to see what happens when a whole raft of kids that otherwise would have left education, are forced into another year of it…now let me guess…

They’re mostly from out of town it outwardly appears. College need to admit there’s a problem or go on a major PR exercise to prove otherwise. Whatever the situation, that college costs the borough a lot of money one way or another. Do they finance the policing required?

I know quite a few perfectly decent hardworking young people who have gone/ go to the college and have achieved good results and university places, including Oxbridge. I don’t think that the antics of a minority should be taken to reflect on the College as a whole. Clearly the issue needs to be addressed, and not by a college employee standing at the station suggesting to other passengers that they go to the other end of the train rather than disciplining the pupils involved! However to suggest the whole college be shut down is entirely disproportionate and, dare I say, ignorant of the hard work of most of the students and staff.

Apart from anything else we need the college to provide the secondary places the Council have otherwise failed to plan for.

Read the thread all the way through. People (including me) were suggesting that the college should be shut down when we have more sixth forms in the borough. Which we will soon.

In this week’s RTT there is a vox pops with five of the college’s students. They are from Wembley, “Surrey”, Merton, Shepperton and Chiswick. Not one kid from our borough. The college is attracting trouble and kids have to travel miles, at great expense, to get here. It’s ludicrous.

Have you investigated the nature of the sixth form proposals? Our oversubscribed secondaries Waldegrave, Teddington and Orleans will offer a very academic sixth form, a choice of 17 or so A levels, but will not have enough places even for the students there already who would go on to study A levels, they propose to select on distance, just in case parents thought all the moving house etc ended at 11. Twickenham Academy will offer a limited academic option, a choice of 7 A levels, not even Chemistry or languages, and vocational options in healthcare etc. Of course there were always local students moving even from our most academic private schools such as LEH to Richmond College for the additional choice it offered at A level, or because of financial considerations. And on top of that there is all the vocational skills and business training that won’t be offered in any of the sixth forms.

The College is still very much needed because the sixth form proposals will not meet the needs, let alone desires or provide “choice and diversity” for all our 17 and 18 year olds.

And then there is the fact that we are going to have hundreds more pupils emerging from all those bulge classes in our primaries and the Council are no longer empowered to set up new schools and can’t expand existing ones because any spare capacity has been taken up establishing sixth forms. They need the college too, and the proposed secondary school that will be established by it using it’s land and facilities. .

Clearly the college has a problem that needs addressing but keep it within the perspective of an institution which serves 2000 young people, and not one was actually involved in this incident

Yes it serves a wide area but so do all the sixth form colleges and Esher which many local pupils have long opted for is getting more difficult to get into.

By the way I have no agenda, but my two teens have friends at the college and the picure painted in this thread is out of touch with the reality.

The majority of students of sixth form age who live in this borough choose to further their education elsewhere, as they are well aware of the deplorable standards at Richmond College. Ergo this results in the student body of this educational failure being made up mostly by youngsters from external borough’s who bring their troubles an gang rivalries into Twickenham.

LBRUT should close the place down, sell the land on for development into affordable housing and direct a sizable proportion of the profits into local secondary schools and academies, in order to ensure they provide sixth form education.

I don’t know the history of how Ricmond College got into its current situation, but incidents like this – unless it turns out to be totally unconnected with the college or its students in any way at all – don’t do anything to help it promote itself to local kids wanting to do A levels or other courses. No wonder so many go elsewhere to study or that the plan for sixth forms in schools seems so popular. A big fight near RUTC quickly undermines the benefits of its regular advertising campaigns in the local paper. The college needs to reinvent itself somehow.

In the past it has been common to see a large number of police officers, some with dogs, and ticket inspectors present at Twickenham railway station in the mornings. They were checking to see if Richmond College students had tickets or were allegedly in possession of drugs. These officials were often met by verbal abuse and physical threats.This was intimidating to other passengers who often felt threatened by the situation.
On one occassion I saw a student run down the steps, jump onto the railway tracks and climb over the wall in Mary’s Terrace in order to avoid the police.
Richmond College, which already has a poor reputation, needs to work with the police and local authorites to get a grip on things before someone is seriously injured or killed.
Most people are fed up with it’s excuses and the lack of proper management and discipline of some of it’s students.

The R&TT reports that a Richmond College spokesman said:
“None of these young males are students at Richmond upon Thames College. Unfortunately, a college student, who was making his way home also received a minor injury”
I hope it wasn’t an English teacher who made that contradictory statement!

Presumably the College want us to believe that large groups of youths are commuting into Twickenham in order to have fights on a quiet suburban road. It is quite an amazing coincidence they chose to do it, yet again, on the main approach road to the College that leads nowhere else of interest to groups of youths.

It would be interesting to know what proportion of the College students actually live in LBRuT, and what proportion commute from elsewhere.

I very much hope that the College is paying for all the police required to chaperone the students and their groupies from the station to the college and back again everyday, and to protect other station users from the students.

There have been 3 stabbings in the last 5 years, all related to college students and their “friends”. It’s clear to everyone who lives locally that the admissions policy of RUT college is the cause of this violence. How long will it be until a inocent local resident gets inadverntently dragged into this violence

There have been plenty of incidents over the past year or 2 with brawls or when they ransacked the shop at the station. I understand they have increased security and the students now have ID badges but what is the answer on how to deal with these thugs coming in for trouble? .. ah, maybe to build a secondary school in the vicinity and hope that the high school kids don’t start getting involved?

Or maybe, when all the local schools have sixth forms, close the college down and move it somewhere the majority of students actually live? How much does it cost various education authorities in train fares to get all those kids to Twickenham every day?

Obviously the police need to investigate etc etc, but, if memory serves, there have been incidents in the past which have not directly involved students at the college but which have involved ‘fellow travellers’ – friends, acquaintances, enemies etc playing out their rivalries and disputes in the vicinity. Obviously the police need to investigate etc etc but that could be one explanation for c30 people having a fight in the middle of a Monday afternoon.